Cursed
by Loop de Lilly
Summary: Set during Haunted (Book 5). Suze goes with Paul reluctantly, as he's promised her more information on her powers. Things do not go as planned. Paul is dark, twisted, and will stop at nothing to have Suze as his own, however he has to take her. Suze and Jesse are determined to keep that from happening.


Author's Note: Set during _Haunted_ , at Suze's very first Shifter Lesson, where Paul talked her into coming to his house for the first time after mentioning Soul Transference. Though _Twilight_ and _Remembrance_ (Books 6 & 7) don't occur exactly in this universe, there are events inspired by them.

Paul was completely obsessed with Suze in the books, and a lusty, angry man with too much power. It never felt to me he would have given up so easily. This is my take on events.

 **Chapter One**

All I'd wanted was to ask about soul transference.

And yeah, okay. Paul was right. I hadn't asked just because of Craig and his brother. I mean, I wouldn't have put Craig into Neil's body, even if it was possible. It wouldn't have been fair. To Neil, I mean. He was the alive one. He shouldn't be forced out of his body just because his brother felt like he deserved to live more.

Plus, having compared Craig and Neil side-by-side, I wasn't altogether convinced that Craig would even _want_ Neil's body.

And what _I_ definitely did not want was Paul Slater's lip locked with my own. Especially on what I was acutely aware was his bed.

Okay, sue me. For a hot second, I kissed back. It wasn't like I was kissed a lot! Not, in fact, since that night Jesse had kissed me, and since he'd gotten totally weird around me since then, I wasn't very well getting any anywhere else. So yeah, maybe my lips moved for a minute. And I'll be frank and say that the reason that Paul was _able_ to get his tongue into my mouth was because I wasn't exactly fighting it.

Until I was. I mean, the tongue thing must have brought me back to my senses, because I was suddenly completely aware of what was going on, and all I could think of was how badly I wanted him off of me. His body was possessively on top of mine, radiating a heat that felt, to me, _too_ hot, thought that might have been the shocking difference between his temperature and that of the overly air-conditioned mansion we were sitting in. I lifted both hands from where they were laying limply at my sides, put them on Paul's chest, and _pushed_ with everything I had.

It worked. I mean, it worked a little. Kind of. It put a bit of space between us, I knew, because the cold air rushed to meet the parts of my skin that were now exposed. He craned his neck forward to keep his mouth on mine, but gave up after a minute, pulling slightly back and giving me a look.

I'd never seen that look from Paul Slater before. I'd dreamed of something similar on Jesse's face, but… not like this. Paul was looking at me with such lust, such possessiveness, that it would make a weaker girl swoon. But all I saw in it… all I saw was the unbridled determination and evil. It cast a flame of fear into the pit of my stomach.

"Paul," I said in a calm, low voice, hoping I could talk my way out of this. After all, he was basically on top of me on his bed, and though I'm no amateur when it comes to ass-kicking, he was bigger than me. "Let me up. Please. I don't want this."

I was giving myself a little bit of an internal ovation for how chill I was remaining. Susannah Simon was a girl of _action_ , which had gotten me into trouble more than once, but something in the back of my mind was telling me that I wasn't going to get anywhere with Paul by trying to fight him. Not when he was like this, looking at me like that.

"You do want this." He said it with almost equal calmness in his voice. It was eerie, actually. Like talking to a serial killer. I would know, too, because I actually had once. That had not been a pleasant experience, but Marcus Beaumont eventually got what was coming to him.

"I don't," I responded. Even I could hear the hint of panic in my tone.

It happened quickly—Paul reaching up—I thought, at first, to touch my fact—but instead, grabbing the top of my pink scoop-neck top and pulling it down, roughly, so suddenly, my black bra was exposed. I felt fire flush my face as I responded nearly as quickly—by nailing a punch to the side of his head. That made him let go, at least, enough for me to push him to the side and put a good amount of distance between the two of us. I pulled my shirt back up quickly, and examined the damage he had done to the neckline—it was stretched a little, but it was machine-washable, and I was hoping it would snap back to place in the dryer.

"That was so rude," I exclaimed, a little hurt. I mean, I knew he was mad, but why take it out on my clothes? I spent long hours in outlet sales finding these gems.

I don't think I realized the seriousness of the situation. Within a second, my arms were pinned behind my back. I almost screamed, but at the same instance, a large, leathery hand covered my mouth, tightly. Actually, it hurt. And the hand, I noticed, was glowing. I writhed around a little, trying to get a look at who was holding me back, but whoever it was had some serious manpower.

Okay, I thought. This is less than ideal. Paul evidently had some kind of spectral goony hanging around to do his dirty work, and I had fallen directly into his clutches. I should have run. And as I thought of running, I remembered the blisters on my toes, and flinched, suddenly feeling all the pain of them. The hands gripping me got tighter, assuming, I suppose, that my flinch was a move to try to escape.

" _I_ was rude, Susie?" Paul barked out with a laugh. Only, there was no humor in it. There was only something much darker. "Jesus Christ, you punched me in the face. That's going to bruise, Suze. People are going to see it." He had stood up, turned around, and was walking slowly toward me now. I glared at him, trying to give him my best _don't you fucking dare_ look.

"Don't think about calling the cowboy," Paul continued casually. "The second you do, I take him back. And you won't be returning him this time." My heart went cold. He'd said this at the exact moment I was beginning to think that calling Jesse might be a good idea. But… no. I couldn't lose him. Even if he was ignoring me, pretending that nothing happened between us, I couldn't lose him.

Not again.

My mind flashed briefly to Craig, thinking of how burly he was, but the same issue arose—Paul would just get rid of him. But maybe, just maybe, the time it took to accomplish that would be enough to get out of the house. I didn't have a ride, of course, but what was he going to do—kidnap me off the road? It wasn't exactly a calm, traffic-less drive down 17 Mile Road; someone was going to be out, and he couldn't well snatch a teenage girl off the road while she was quite clearly running from him in broad daylight.

I was so caught up in my thoughts of potential escape that I almost didn't notice Paul give my captor an almost imperceptible nod, and suddenly I was being shoved. It caught me off guard, and I found myself on my knees at Paul's feet.

Not exactly a great place to be at the moment.

Paul's thoughts must have been going in the same direction as mine, since he looked down at me, whistled low, and said, "That is certainly a beautiful view."

I almost gagged. Under different circumstances, I might have, if even just for show—but I was starting to get legitimately afraid. I was trying to push it down, but there it was, bubbling to the surface, sort of clouding my ability to think straight. I scrambled to my feet and quickly glanced behind me, trying to see who has captured me—a ghost indeed. A big, burly one. Much bigger than Craig. He was wearing a sort of leather ensemble that reminded me of a motorcycle gang. Biker Bob was standing with his arms crossed in front of him, not really looking at either me or Paul, but rather straight ahead at the wall, or maybe the door. Regardless, I got the sinking feeling that he knew exactly what was going on.

"Paul," I said again, my tone almost pleading. "Let me go home. Please. I have some stuff I need to get done… and I'd love to stay here with you…" That was the wrong thing to say. I knew it as soon as I was done saying it. I wanted to suck the words back into my mouth, but I couldn't. My instinct had been to placate him, as I would occasionally with particularly delusional ghosts, but in him it just seemed to stoke whatever fire he had going.

"Stay." It was a command. His icy eyes seemed to flash a little. My eyes darted around the room—a weapon, maybe? I could do that. I could take him. But what about Biker Bob? I sure as hell couldn't take them both.

But my search was cut short when Paul grabbed me by the neck and threw me back onto his bed. Seriously. By my _neck_. His hands were _that_ big. And he tossed me like I was a paper doll.

He then threw his own body onto mine. Or tried to, at least. I was thinking straight this time. I'd rolled out of the way, rolled completely off the bed, in fact, and scrambled to the door before Paul and Biker Bob knew what hit them.

" _Suze!_ " Paul's voice roared after me. But I was sprinting, barefoot, down the stairs and out the front door.

 **.**

I've never run a mile before, but there's a good chance I set a record trying to get away from the Slater house. I probably looked like a lunatic, too—dark hair flapping in the air behind me, black denim skirt riding up in a way that would have made Sister Ernestine freak out. And barefoot, too—I didn't realize until I'd put what I felt was adequate distance between me and Paul Slater that I'd left my Jimmy Choos behind. I mean sure, they had killed my feet, but they were also $600 retail, and sure, I'd only paid a fraction of that, but that didn't mean I was okay losing them.

But also… there was no way in hell I was going back to the Slater house.

And it was only when I stopped running and bent over to catch my breath that I realized there was an excruciating pain coming from my feet, and ringing all the way up my legs. I cried out a little bit at the discovery and instinctively leapt from the pavement to the weeds beside the sidewalk, poison oak be damned.

I blinked, and realized how far I was from home. _Shit_. I wasn't going to be able to make it all that way on foot—not now, not that I realized that I was suffering from some pretty incredible burns alongside my blisters. The adrenaline had gotten me this far, but with every second it was waning, and forcing me to take inventory of my injuries.

Bruised lips. I could feel them when I took in gasps of air. Fine, maybe they would look a little pouty for a few days.

My elbow was stinging as well, probably from being held behind my back like that by Biker Bob, but as I cautiously stretched it, I could tell nothing was broken or sprained. Fine, not a big deal.

The biggest issue, then, besides my poor feet, was my neck. It felt like Paul had squashed part of my larynx when he grabbed it, because every gasp of air was painful. Which also didn't bode well for getting home on foot. As my breathing slowed, the pain lessened, but didn't go away.

Okay, so now what?

"Think, Suze," I grumbled to myself. That's when I remembered—there was some kind of restaurant along the road, one that would definitely have a pay phone.

Of course, I realized with dismay, I had no coins. I'd left my purse behind at Paul's house as well. _Damn it_.

I set out in that direction anyway. I figured once I got there, I'd figure it out—maybe use my "feminine wiles", as Father Dom had called them, on some unsuspecting waiter, and weasel a quarter out of him. The sun was really beating down now, and I realized I was sweating.

I must have run further than I'd thought, because when I rounded the next bend, I saw the Sea Mist Café—and more importantly, a familiar face exiting it. "Neil!" I exclaimed with relief. He was heading to a car, oh thank God, Neil I could definitely convince to give me a ride back to 99 Pine Crest. I realized with a start that this may well be one of his father's restaurants… hadn't he mentioned at dinner the other day that he owned several?

"Sue?" Neil asked as I approached. Close enough. "What happened to you? Are you okay?"

I looked down then and realized how disheveled I was—shoeless, purse-less, with a wrinkled shirt collar and my skirt hiked up from running. I looked like a runaway, or maybe a cheap hooker. A cheap hooker in a designer skirt. "Please, Neil, can I please get a ride home?"

He looked me up and down, and I sensed he was trying to find an excuse—but he finally sighed and, just as his brother materialized behind him, said, "Yeah, okay, get in," in that _I guess this is happening_ kind of way that guys sometimes get.

I don't remember much of the ride home except that it was silent and uneventful. I don't remember saying goodbye or thank you to Neil, or even getting up the stairs to my room. But what I do remember is walking through my bedroom door to be faced with the one person I was hoping not to see while I was in this state.

" _Susannah_?"

Jesse sounded appalled. I kind of got it. I mean, I'd caught a look at myself in the rearview mirror of Neil's car—my eyeliner was smudged, which I'd tried in vain to clean off, and I was starting to get some red marks where Paul and Biker Bob had grabbed me.

"Hey," I said meekly as Jesse rushed to me and guided me to my bed. I really, really wanted to get something for my feet. They were killing me. But at the same time, his big hands gently guiding me to the bed was the most contact Jesse and I had since The Kiss, and I wasn't quite willing to let it go yet.

My heart filled to the breaking point with excitement as Jesse, now that I was sitting, gently took my chin in his hand and lifted my face to look at him, and I kind of got ready, you know, to get another kiss, opening my lips just the slightest bit while lowering my eyelids juuuust a touch—but it wasn't my lips Jesse was looking at. I snapped my mouth shut, both disappointed and a little embarrassed, as I figured his deep brown eyes were examining my neck. He looked, I suddenly noticed, horrified.

"What _happened_ to you?" He whispered something else in Spanish, so quietly I almost missed it, but it sounded scared. I then realized what had happened.

Jesse had seen the mark on my neck from where Paul had grabbed me.

Jesse, who, 150 years prior, was killed by strangulation.

So, yeah, that's gotta be a bitch.

"It was an accident," I was quick to blurt out. I almost slapped myself. God, Suze, how thick are you? What kind of accident leaves what are quite clearly handprints on one's _neck_?

Jesse was breathing deeply and forcefully through his nose which, I noticed with some interest, was flaring in a pretty sexy way. But as he gently lifted his hand to touch the sensitive skin on my neck, I flinched and pulled away. Within a second, Jesse was off the bed, hands out in front of him, a flash of fear across his face.

Oh. _Oh_. He thought I was afraid.

Or maybe _he_ was afraid. It was hard to tell.

"Who did this to you, Susannah?" he whispered, a note of panic in his voice. I racked my brain for something—anything—to tell him, anything but the truth.

Because I really believed Paul, you know. After seeing the look in his eye earlier, I knew exactly what he wanted—he wanted me. And to get at me, he wanted Jesse out of the way.

I was drawing a blank. So I did something next that I really probably should do more often—I told the truth. I didn't mean to. It just sort of all came spilling out. And as Jesse listened, his expression turned, slowly, from fear to pure horror.

"And then Neil drove me home," I finished lamely, having gotten the story out. Jesse was still standing, still as a statue, in front of me, his hands still slightly up, like he was surrendering. I ran my hand through my hair, pulling it away from my face, and looked away from him.

" _Querida_." His voice was impossibly gentle, and when I looked at him, he was cautiously approaching me. My heart fluttered. I mean, he hadn't called me that for a bit, and I had missed it. I missed it way more than I would ever admit to him. "Did Slater… did he attempt to force himself on you?"

I guess I hadn't really considered it in that way, but when Jesse said it, with his voice so full of compassion and tinted ever so slightly with tension, everything came crashing back. The helplessness, the panic, the pain—all of it. I sucked in a shaky breath and looked down at my poor feet as traitorous tears began to prick at the corner of my eyes. All I could do was shrug.

I really, _really_ wasn't expecting what happened next. One minute, I was staring at my feet, twiddling my fingers in my lap, and then I was on Jesse's lap, and he was holding me, and I was crying. He was rocking me ever so slightly, and just kept whispering, "Susannah, Susannah," into my hair.

To be honest, I felt really dumb. I was crying over _nothing_. Nothing had happened! He'd barely even gotten a good look at my bra. And I had the overwhelming guilt, of course, from having kissed him back at first… I mean, what was he supposed to think?

But then the look in his ice cold eyes flashed again before my eyes, and I let out a pitiful whimper, and Jesse held me tighter. And I was safe.


End file.
